Although the chapters of this book are supposed to treat only of the southern republics of South America, it would nevertheless be a shame not to mention Lima and the Peruvian hinterland, therefore this and the following chapter.

Callao, the port of Lima, where the ships anchor, has a population of forty-five thousand. It is here that one first gets an idea of genuine Peruvian architecture. The two and three storied houses, many of which are adorned by steeples and towers, invariably have enclosed wooden balconies projecting from the second floor over the street, giving the touch of old Stamboul or other oriental cities. It is difficult to conjecture the origin of these balconies. The Moorish style of architecture which the Spaniards copied and brought to their colonies was plain, with bare outside walls and few windows. This Turkish style seen by many tourists for the first time in their lives at Callao is that which predominates in Central Peru and is also prevalent to a certain extent as far south as Tacna.

In Callao there is but little to interest the stranger. As in most seaports, tough characters abound, and there is a bevy of saloons; but unlike most seaports, Callao is comparatively clean, especially the show places. It has a large church, a few pleasant plazas, and some marble statues. In reputation it is one of the toughest towns in the world; it formerly was the jumping-off place for criminals and the tales of shanghaiing and murders that took place here not so many years back would fill volumes.

The harbor is landlocked by the mainland, a sandy point, and the mountainous island of San Lorenzo. The port works of stone are the best on the whole Pacific Coast but at the present time no ships anchor at them. This is due to the prevalence of bubonic plague (occasionally a few sporadic cases) which can be transmitted to the passengers and crews through the medium of rats. A reason more vital to the municipality for not allowing the ships to anchor at the docks is that of providing employment for the fleteros, or boatmen, who earn a few soles by rowing people and baggage to and from the ships. In the harbor are two Peruvian men-of-war. They have lain there several years. Their boilers are defective and their machinery needs repairing, but nothing is ever done to make them seaworthy. I saw the admiral in a street car. He is a big, fat fellow with about a fifty-three inch waist line, and resplendent with gold braid. From the servile humility of the conductor and the passengers towards him, one might judge that he ranked with von Tirpitz and I have no doubt but that he entertained the same opinion of himself.

Lima is about five miles distant inland from Callao, to which city it is connected by a trolley and two railway lines. The former, double-tracked, runs in a straight line through a decidedly Athenian landscape. On all sides are green fields, olive groves, black hills, and whitish soil. The air, odor, and decisive clearness of the atmosphere is Attic; the style of the country houses, nature of the crops, and appearance of the live stock is analogous to that of Attica. On the south side of the main road are two large country seats that would grace any rural scene; they are the residences of the Italian families Castagnone and Nosiglia, and are set back at some distance from the turnpike.

The population of Lima, Callao, and many of the seaboard Peruvian towns is composed of Aryans, Indians, Hamitics, and Mongolians, with a conglomerate mixture of all four races. In Lima, people with mixed white and Indian blood predominate; those of mixed white and negro blood are a close second. The aristocracy and better-to-do classes are white and are descended from the Spaniards. They do not marry outside of their own race and constitute the ruling element. There is a large Italian colony, many of whose male members are leading merchants and professional men. Far outnumbering the whites are the various hues of mixed breeds, Indians, negroes, and Chinese, which form the rabble. The cholo is a scion of an Indian and a white person, while a chino-cholo is the offspring of a Chinaman and an Indian. To get a good idea of Peruvian mixture as applied to the lower walks of society (which constitute all the classes not belonging to the white race, and which greatly predominate), one can take the following genealogical tree as an example. A white man marries a squaw which we can designate as union A. A Chinaman marries a negress; we can call this union B. The progeny of union A marries the progeny of union B, which is union C. The result is a child which has blood one fourth white, one fourth black, one fourth Indian, and one fourth Chinese. Although mixtures like this are uncommon, they nevertheless exist, but it is of great commonness for a person to have the blood of three of these races.

These mixtures diminish the intellect and decrease the vitality of the offspring, who are invariably inferior to the pure bloods, even if the pure blood is Indian or negro. The children of these marriages inherit few of the good qualities of their parents, but all of their vices. The cholos, proud of their white blood, tyrannize over the poor Indians and subject them to indignities and cruelties such as were never practiced in slavery times by their Spanish masters. These same cholos cringe like curs before the white man. Their natural disposition is good, excepting that they have the trait of dreadfully abusing and misusing the poor Indians. The Chinese, of which there are thirty thousand in the provinces of Callao and Lima, have not intermarried with the other races so much as the other three mentioned ones. They are lawabiding and quiet, but the mixed offspring from them is deficient in good qualities. The worst of all races in Peru is the offspring of the negro and the cholo. The result is a progeny that is downright bad. It is these that constitute the riotous mobs that murder and hurl missiles every time there is an abortive or a genuine revolution. They do not know what the row is about, yet they want to participate in it for the main love of wickedness. I saw a crowd of this degenerate gentry, evidently "egged on" by some political opponent, hurl legumes and bricks at the brother of ex-President Leguia when he was leaving the Doric-columned Senate Building. One of these bricks severely injured a stranger, and I, an unconscious spectator, had a white duck suit discolored by unsavory hen fruit. The Limeno bootblacks are recruited from this class, and as a rule when they are not shining shoes or up to some deviltry, they stand around the booths singing in an undertone obscene stanzas of their own composition to attentive dregs of humanity. The "buck-niggers" and their families, of untarnished ebony hue, originally migrated into Peru from Jamaica. They do not make bad citizens, but their population is fast diminishing, their numbers becoming assimilated with the other races.

There is considerable material for argument relative to the origin of the name of the Peruvian metropolis, which nobody seems to have taken the pains to unravel. Lima was founded January 18, 1535, by Don Francisco Pizarro. It was granted its charter and received its seal by a royal decree of Charles V. of Spain, December 7, 1537, under the name of the Most Noble and Very Loyal City of Kings. The name Lima, which the stranger is erroneously told is a corruption of the word Rimac (the name of the river which divides the modern city), was said to be the name of the Indian village which had its center where the capitol building now stands; owing to the shortness of its name, it superceded the longer title given to it by the Spanish king. Many of the Spanish conquistadores named cities which they founded in the new world after cities in Spain from which they hailed. Thus Trujillo in Peru is named after Trujillo in Spain, Pizarro's birthplace. There is a town named Valladolid in Yucatan, a city named Cartagena in Colombia, a CordÓba in Argentina, and a Linares in Chile. All of these places were named after places of the same name in the Iberian Peninsula. Likewise there is a Lima in Spain. It may be that the capital of Peru was named after it, and that the name of the Indian village is legend. To substantiate this theory, there is a city in central Brazil named Lima which is an old town. This Brazilian city would undoubtedly owe the origin of its name to the same source as would Lima, Peru. There is a theory however which would knock this out and that is one of my own. Lima, Spain, only appears on the modern maps of that country. It is a small town in Leon. I have examined many maps and ancient geographies of Spain and do not find it there, yet it is inconceivable that Lima, Spain, would be named after Lima, Peru.

The variety of large bean which at home we are accustomed to call the Lima bean is not a native of this place. Their origin is a town named Ica, which is about a hundred miles southeast of Lima, and in Peru it is called the Ica bean.

Lima is divided into two uneven parts by the Rimac River, which is spanned by two traffic bridges, the Puente Vieja, commonly known as the Stone Bridge, and the Puente Balta, by a railroad bridge, and by a temporary footbridge. The Rimac is a swiftly flowing, transparent stream, which jumps over cascades and has a considerable volume of water for a mountain stream. Its bed is not well defined as it contains many small islands and gravel bars. At the stone bridge it is kept within bounds. The river furnishes irrigation for the whole valley in which the capital is situated and could even be made to furnish more since much of its volume of water goes to waste. This is a crime on account of its scarcity.

Lima should not be passed without a week's sojourn by any visitor to the west coast of South America, whether he is a professor, antiquarian, commercial traveler, or ordinary tourist. No other city in the Western Hemisphere retains in so marked a degree its medievalism, yet no other city on the west coast of South America is so advanced in modernity. Luxury rubs shoulders with poverty; there are numerous palaces and also countless hovels. The great churches, all Roman Catholic, bear testimony by their superb interiors to the lavishness of devotion. In the shop windows are displayed the silver ornaments and utensils of Cuzco and Cajamarca; next door to them are presented the baubles and gewgaws of New York and Paris.

The population is estimated at two hundred thousand which is probably nearly correct. The city is very compactly built and centered so that its streets teem with more life than an ordinary city of the same number of inhabitants. Although its population is but half that of Santiago, this centralization makes it appear to be a larger place. The buildings, two, three, and four stories in height, are massive, although many are built of adobe, plastered and painted over, and give the city a metropolitan appearance. In Santiago many of the merchants and well-to-do inhabitants live in the suburbs; in Lima they reside near the center of the city. During the past few years, the Peruvian capital has made great strides in civic improvement. The main streets are now paved with stone; they were formerly paved with sharp pebbles. They are kept clean, which is a great contrast to the dusty offal which formerly littered them and which in powdered form assailed the eyes and nostrils of the pedestrians every time a gust of wind arose. The equipages for the transportation of passengers are superior to those of Santiago and the street car service, although not frequent enough, is better than that of the Chilean capital. There has also been much recent building going on, the new edifices being of modern European design.

Standing in the Hotel Maury one day I was introduced to a prominent Lima business man named Arthur Field, who was born there. He kindly offered to show me the city in his automobile. I told him that I was already acquainted with Lima, having made previous visits there.

"I am so glad," said he; "most tourists go away with such a poor impression of Lima, and some go away after a short sojourn and write most uncomplimentary things about it, which hurts it. Ambassador Bryce spoke very illy of Lima, and he was only here for a few days. There is to my knowledge only one book written recently which gives a true description of the city. It was written by a namesake of yours, a man named Stephens. My wife and my friends have read it, and they all pronounce it as true."

I did not tell him that I wrote the book, but another man in the group, an American, spotted me for its author from the frontispiece in it, which has my likeness. This last-mentioned man went home that noon, and verified his suspicions by again looking at the frontispiece. That afternoon he procured his copy of the book and started to the Hotel Maury to congratulate me. On the way he got gloriously drunk, and in an inebriated condition he showed the paragraph where I mentioned the Hotel Maury to one of its proprietors. Since I had spoken poorly of the establishment in it (it had improved decidedly since I was there before) I thought the result would be a request for me to change quarters. The proprietor could speak no English and judging that the talk of the American was due to an excess of batida bitters and John de Kuyper paid no attention to the subject.

A bad feature about Lima is that the same street has a different name for each block. This was the old Spanish custom and it makes it necessary for the visitor to buy a plan of the city to memorize the nomenclatures of the principal blocks. In recent years the municipality has tried to remedy this custom by giving a street one single name, but the old appellations still cling and probably always will. The Calle Union, Lima's main street, is not so called by the ordinary native, and its different blocks are known as Palacio, Portal de Escribanos, Mercaderes, Espaderos, Merced, Baquijano, Boza, San Juan de Dios, Belen, Juan Simon, and so forth. Its principal sector, Calle Huallaga, is known respectively as Judios, Melchormalo, Virreina, Concepcion, Presa, Lechugal, and San Andres.

Calle Union presents much life. It begins at the Plaza de Armas and is about a mile long, terminating at the ZoÖlogical Gardens. On it is the city hall, several theaters, the Merced church, the Forero palace, and the penitentiary. It is the main retail street and is always much crowded. Huallaga is a busy street with antiquarian shops, banks, and wholesale offices. On it is the Hotel Central, the Bank of Peru and London, the Concepcion market, the Concepcion church, and the police headquarters.

The Concepcion market is the largest that I have ever seen. Its ground area, covering a whole block, is about the same size as the Tacon market in Havana, but it is higher. There are many queer vegetables, herbs, and fruits offered for sale which are unknown in Europe or in North America. The potato, whose origin is Peru, is sold in this market, not in the raw state as in our markets, but desiccated. The natives soak them in water, sun dry them, and put them for sale in this fashion, for this way they will keep indefinitely. In the meat department cats crawl over the loins and spare ribs while whippets snap at fly-bedizened bones. I attempted to take a time exposure of the place but a gawky overgrown boy walked in front of the camera, spoiling the picture. A cuff on the ears from me which sent him spinning against a basket of eggs nearly caused a small riot.

The Bank of Peru and London is the largest bank building in South America. It is a three-story white structure built in a classical style of architecture. There are several other large banks.

The Plaza de Armas lacks much of the charm of the plazas in the Chilean cities. It is planted to palmetto trees, which I think always look out of place outside of their wild native state. On the north side of this square is the one-story-high capitol building. Somewhere in its patio is the spot where Pizarro was murdered. The exact place is not known on account of the many alterations that have taken place in the building. His skeleton rests in a white marble sarcophagus in the cathedral.

This cathedral, whose stately and magnificent pile was described by me in a previous book on South America, ranks as one of the largest religious edifices in the world. Its twin towers, one at each side of a broad faÇade, rise majestically into the heavens and are visible from a great distance. Its spacious nave and aisles are crowned by a ribbed roof, whose ceiling is painted in symmetrical designs in pink and azure. Many mendicants loiter about the interior, and when the sexton shows you Pizarro's skeleton, they all solicit alms for such trivialities as holding the candle to view the remains, opening the door of the chapel, and so forth. In the chapel where his remains repose is an altar of pure silver brought from Cuzco.

Lima, always the capital of the Spanish dominion in the New World, and the seat of the Inquisition in South America, was and is still a pillar of Catholicism. The plaza where the Senate building is located is named the Plazuela de la Inquisicion; in its neighborhood were perpetrated the barbarous tortures on heretics, written about in VicuÑa Mackenna's books. Joints were stretched by screws; ear holes were filled with molten metal; writhing bodies to whose feet was tied an iron hundredweight were hoisted by outstretched arms to the ceiling by means of pulleys, the weight causing the body to tear in two at the abdomen. The last of these barbarities took place in 1820. In Peru no other religion but the Roman Catholic is recognized, although others are tolerated. Watching a religious procession one day as it passed through the streets of the city, a thirty-second-degree Mason turned to me and said:

"A Mason has no more show in this town than a fly on fly-paper."

There are forty-eight large churches in Lima and twenty-two chapels. The latter are large enough to be fair-sized churches in the United States. The most aristocratic church is that of La Merced adjoining the convent of the same name on the Calle Union. It has an opulent interior. The nave is high and airy, and the air is laden with frankincense. It is my favorite of all the Lima churches and I often repaired thither to attend mass or for pious meditation. San Francisco church is very rich; its architecture is Saracenic. Another fine church is San Augustin. It has a marvelous sculptured faÇade. According to the original plan, it was to have two towers but they have never been added. It is here that the president takes his oath of office. Other fine churches worthy of visit are San Domingo, San Pedro, and Nazarenas, although many others present great interest.

Easter week in Lima is an unforgettable event. Penitents, carrying holy images, processions, and throngs of religious devotees fill the streets. One of the pageants which has a touch of barbaric mingled with Christianity is that of the Milagro. What gives it a touch of the barbaric is the majority of negroes who take part in it. The trail of the Milagro lies through the squalid streets in the part of the city north of the Rimac. All the people officiating are garbed in purple tunics. It is preceded by youths carrying gaudy lamps. Then follow negro women, chanting dirges. A stranger looking at it for the first time is apt to believe that it is a procession exorcising against the plague for after the cantors come black Mary Magdalene's carrying lighted hand braziers from which they blow great fumes of incense smoke on the onlookers, nearly suffocating many by the intoxicating fragrance. There is a brass band of purple-robed devotees playing weird music followed by an image of the Saviour in an upright position mounted on a metal platform. This image is adorned with wreaths, flowers, and ribbons; before it is an altar with lighted candles. The platform is very heavy and is borne by sixteen men, four on each side, four in front, and four in back, who support its weight on their padded shoulders on which rest beams. The procession is very slow, moving at a snail's pace, and as it proceeds, the pageant sways with a peculiar serpentine rhythm. On account of the weight of the image and its accouterments, at every few yards the procession stops and the carriers are relayed. Some of them faint under the strain. The expression on the faces of the carriers is that of most reverend devotion; the light of sanctity is in their eyes, and they walk as if in a trance. This carrying of the image is a great honor, and the fortunate ones look forward to it for a whole year. Following the image walked a priest, his well-fed form protected from the sun by a canopy of cloth of gold upheld on poles by six purple-clad boys. His expression was far from being that of sanctity. Merciless and unrelentless, his face wore a heartless and cold-blooded mien as if he were a graven image of stone. Smug and self-centered, he appeared to be greatly contented with the position he occupied, the cynosure of all eyes. When the procession passed the Calle Trujillo, the main street of the section of Lima north of the Rimac, street car and pedestrian traffic was stopped for half an hour. As in all places, there was a crowd of procession followers. As the pageant merely crawled along, many youths of this class regaled themselves with libations of pisco which is offered for sale every few doors in that neighborhood. The consequence was that there were many staggering steps among the spectators.

Lima is seen to its greatest advantage from the middle of the stone bridge at dusk when the electric lights are being turned on or after dark on a moonlight night from the same spot. The view is far superior to that of Florence as seen from the Arno bridge. In the daytime the masses of chrome-colored houses, churches, and towers, the teeming street life, the trains arriving at and leaving Desamparados station present the aspect of a metropolis both medieval and modern. At night when the white moon rising above San Cristobal hill plays on the ripples of the Rimac, and reflects on them the myriads of lights from the windows, while in the distance the trees along the river bank cause an inky blackness, is seen a picture beyond the scope of the greatest artists.

The part of Lima north of the Rimac is much the smallest, but it is the most thickly settled. It is the dirtiest part and is the favorite abode of negroes and Chinamen; here street dogs of all descriptions constantinopolize the thoroughfares, and when not basking on their bellies on the sidewalks, they devour mule manure and snap at fleas. This is the section of the city where the bubonic plague cases sporadically occur, as well as being the section most poignant in crime. It has a handsome parkway with statues, the Alameda de los Descalzos, though it would be better located if it were south of the river. On the north side are the two breweries, which with the exception of two flour mills are Lima's sole factories. The breweries are Backus & Johnston Company, Ltd., and Eduardo Harster's Piedra Liza Brewery. Above the suburb of Piedra Liza rises San Cristobal hill (altitude 1300 feet) which is 179 feet higher than the hill of the same name at Santiago, Chile. Its summit is crowned by a wireless station of the Telefunken.

In Lima there is only one hotel at which a North American or a European can stop in comfort, the Maury. This hotel, owned by Angel Bertolotto and leased to Visconti & Velasquez, is with the exception of some of the Buenos Aires hotels the best in South America. Many of the rooms have baths and are sumptuously furnished. The prices are high. This Hotel Maury started with one building on the corner of Bodegones and Villalta but when trade increased, it was necessary to acquire the adjoining buildings, so that at the present time the caravanserai extends the length of the whole block as far as the cathedral. It is as intricate as a maze to find one's way about the upstairs corridors. The ground floor is occupied with several tile-paved dining rooms, and a large bar where congregate many of the foreign residents to enjoy libations. The bartenders are good mixologists, but devote too much of their time selling to tourists at usurious prices guide books and views of Peru that they obtained for a song. When they are not doing this they are busily engaged in drying orange peels that they fished out of somebody's already consumed cocktail in order to have it in proper condition to put into a cocktail ordered by the next customer. The other hotels in Lima, impossible for the foreigner, are the delight of the native-born population, as the Maury is too expensive for their pocketbooks. There are many pastry and confectionery stores in Lima, some being very good ones. These all sell ice cream and specialize in preparing banquets. Many have ice manufacturing establishments in connection with them. The best known are those named Arturo Field, Broggi, Marron, and Parisienne.

The finest cafÉ on the west coast of America is the one in Lima named Palais Concert and is owned by the Maury proprietors. It is modern European, and is supposed to have a Viennese orchestra, none of whom, however, hail from Austria. A popular restaurant is the Estrasburgo. The peculiarity about it is the sacrilegious mural painting in it, which strange to say is tolerated in this most fanatically religious country. The painting is an advertisement of a French brandy firm. The hideous corpse of Lazarus, with pointed chin and ears, coming to life, is rising from a coffin, and with a sardonic grin on his face he is eagerly stretching out his hand for a tumbler of brandy which is being handed him by a bleached-out Christ, garbed in red, and with glistening ringlets of peroxide colored hair. Christ is saying: "Arise, O Lazarus, and drink this brandy!" This Estrasburgo is a favorite resort of Jews in transit. They go there to view this picture, and when they see that no Christian is present, nudge each other and say: "This is fine." The Restaurant Berlin is a well furnished place on the Plateros de San Pedro. This is all. There is no Berlin about it excepting the name, although I understand that the proprietor is a German. The uncouth waiters, some with repulsive boils on their faces, shuffle across the unswept floor, which is overrun with cockroaches, and slop down vile concoctions in front of you, spilling the sticky liquid on the fly-infested table. One night while sitting there with a friend, I was given a curaÇao flavored with turpentine, while he drew a cocktail savored with the cholo waiter's dirty thumb.

One of Lima's institutions is drink. Being almost a teetotaler, I can give no more information than what I observed. Saloons exist everywhere; there are over six thousand of them, some of which are really high class. Also there are clubs where liquid refreshments are sold. There are no days when the saloons are compelled to close; they generally close their doors at night only when business becomes slack. Besides the two breweries in Lima there is one in Callao, and although there is much beer sold, the predominance of mixed drinks is so much greater that the former is put into the background. The beer is vile and I was advised not to drink any of it. In the winter of 1916 two mozos of the Hotel Maury drank a bottle of Nacional Pilsen (Callao) behind a door when the boss was not looking. Five minutes afterwards one mozo died from the effects, and the life of the other was barely saved. Another man drank some Backus & Johnston beer. Shortly afterwards his teeth and tongue turned black. In both these cases it was found that the beer was mixed with powerful acids. The reason for this has not yet been discovered. It is believed by some people that the preparation was faulty; by others that it was the work of a rival brewery. Most of the confectionery stores have bars. Broggi invented a drink which goes by his name. It is called Broggi bitters. This is the recipe:—AperitÀl, cane syrup, and a dash of Angostura. To this is added a lemon rind that has been soaked in alcohol. Add cracked ice and fill the glass with syphon water. Shake well and pour the liquid through a strainer. Broggi bitters may be obtained anywhere in Lima but they do not taste like the ones served at the original place. The Maury specializes in Peruvian cocktails. This drink is pisco, lemon juice, and a teaspoonful of sugar. To it is added a few drops of Angostura; it is then shaken with cracked ice, strained, and served with an orange rind.

Pisco is a terribly strong native drink and is indulged in by the lower classes. It is grape alcohol, and is flavored with pineapple, or raspberry, or orange, or prunes. It is seen in the cheap saloons, standing in large glass jars, yellow, red, orange, or brown according to the flavor of the ingredient syrup. Chicha, far from being like the grape cider of Chile, is here a corn alcohol and is indulged in by the scum for their debauches.

I was once in Lima when there was much money in circulation. The crowds of foreign residents of the mining towns in the Cordillera and the floating population used to hie to the Maury bar twice a day to spend it, and great orgies were pulled off. This has changed materially, for now with less money in circulation, there are no more of these parties. Formerly one never saw any paper currency. Now one never sees any gold. Several of the banks in consolidation have issued circular checks which are considered by the government as legal. They are the best looking bills in South America. Their denominations are half pound, one pound, five and ten pound notes. The merchants grab all the silver soles that fall into their hands, so that it is impossible many times to change these circular checks when change is most needed. Some merchants place signs in their stores saying that this paper currency will not be accepted as tender unless the purchases amount to two soles. I was told by the cashier of the Bank of Peru and London that if I went into a cafÉ, bought and drank a bottle of beer, and offered one of these checks in payment, the proprietors would be obliged to change it even though they had signs posted to the contrary. He said that if they refused to make change for me to walk off without paying and the law would be on my side. I told this to a chance acquaintance from Montana who had a perpetual thirst. He tried it out by making diurnal rounds of many saloons, drinking two or three potations in each place, always tendering a circular check of one of the higher values, which he invariably found unchangeable.

Lima has the only ice-cream soda fountains that I have discovered south of the Equator although I am told that one exists in Buenos Aires. It also has a soft drink parlor, Leonard's, called the Hemaglobino, where ordinary soda water with the standard, and to us exotic, syrups, such as tamarind, are dispensed. As to money making, it is a mint, and as Prat remarked to me, in Buenos Aires it would be a veritable gold mine.

A Lima institution that needs to be ameliorated is the post office department. None of the South American post offices are any too reliable but that of Lima is the limit. A few instances of post office irregularities in the Latin republics will serve as an introduction before that of Lima is dealt with.

In Paraguay it happens that the post offices frequently run shy of stamps. A person in Asuncion would like to mail a letter. He takes it to the post office and is told that there are no stamps but that if he will pay the money equivalent to the postage the letter will be forwarded. He does so, and it is the last he or anybody else ever sees of the letter. It is opened by the post office clerk to see if it contains money. If it does, the money finds its way into the clerk's pocket. In any case the letter is thrown into the waste-paper basket.

In enlightened Argentina, there is also much thievery of mail. A mail car was recently wrecked on the Central Argentine Railroad. Between the lining of the car and the outside boards hundreds of opened registered letters were found. A postmaster in a small Argentine village died recently. In remodeling the building which was used as the post office there were found in the basement four thousand opened letters.

In Santiago I was advised by my friends to send them no registered mail. They told me if I did, they would probably never receive it because it was common for the post office clerks to open registered mail to see if it contained money. In Argentina and in Bolivia the post office clerks are discourteous and hate to make change. They gossip with their friends, keeping a row of people waiting indefinitely for service. Oftentimes they are busily engaged in reading a newspaper and will not look up until the article is read. In Ecuador with the exception of the city of Guayaquil there is no money order service, and letters are not forwarded if the addressee changes his residence. In Peru there is no money order service between Lima and the mining towns such as Cerro de Pasco. Many foreigners live in this last-mentioned town and it is often necessary for people in the capital to remit money to them. In order to do so, it is necessary for the remitter to go to a bank and purchase a draft.

Regarding the Lima post office, thievery is rampant. I bought some Panama hats in Paita and had them sewed up neatly in several parcels which I mailed to friends in the United States. The parcels arrived with practically the identical sewing that I had done, but when they were opened they were found to contain newspapers. A letter to the United States from Lima requires twelve centavos postage and a postal card four centavos. When a foreigner goes to this post office and looks around for the stamp window he is invariably accosted by several individuals who inquire if he wishes to buy any stamps. Upon their being answered in the affirmative, they inquire what denomination he wants. If he should tell them that he wants to buy some twelve centavo stamps they will produce a bunch of them which they will sell him for eight centavos. They also sell four centavo stamps for two and three centavos. Many of these stamps are minus gum. This shows that the post office clerks are in league with these touts. They take off the new stamps, throw the letters in the waste-paper basket, hand the stamps to their understudies, who whack up the profits with them. These clerks also steal new stamps from the drawers and peddle them out the same way.

In Lima, Montevideo, and Asuncion, the post office clerks also do a lucrative business in selling canceled stamps to collectors. They will invariably ask the foreigner if he wishes to buy a set of the current issue canceled. If he refuses they are offended.

Peru is very fertile in the stamp issues that it has put forth ever since postage stamps have been invented. Fortunately for collectors, Peru is considered a good country, as many of its stamps bring high prices in London, New York, and Paris. The natives know this and there is not to be found a booth in Lima which sells stationery, lead pencils, cigars, and lottery tickets which does not also sell canceled postage stamps of the past issues of the country. These can be bought very cheaply, and can be resold in the United States at fancy prices.

Peru can be called a lawless country. It has a good code but its laws are not lived up to. There have been many revolutions and there will be a continuance of them due to its lawless, heterogeneous population, and the political rivalry between different factions. Most of the inhabitants have political ambitions on account of the graft connected with the appointments. Although this is true all over the world, it is especially true in Peru. The cholo maltreats the Indian, and the white man bullies the cholo. The Lima police very seldom arrest a foreigner because they can work him for money. I know of an American in Lima who through some act of his got into conflict with the police. They led him off ostensibly to jail, but when they reached a dark street they asked him how much he would give if they let him go. They willingly accepted ten pesos. One night I made a purchase in one of the stores. After having paid for it, I took my purchase and walked out into the street. I had scarcely taken a few steps before the proprietor ran out of his store and told me that I had not paid him enough because he had discovered that what he sold me was worth more than he charged me. This is a favorite South American dodge and is perpetrated by storekeepers when they think they can get more for their goods than what they sold them for. Even the proprietor of a large importing drug firm in Arequipa tried this on me once, and he was a man worth over one hundred thousand dollars. I declined to pay the Lima storekeeper any more money and also declined to give up my purchase. A half block away stood several policemen and he sent a friend after one of these. The cops soon appeared on the scene and started to make a big fuss. Ordinarily I would have returned the purchase but this happened to be something that I wanted. When the policemen, storekeeper, and bystanders were at the pitch of excitement, I managed to slip a couple of pesos into the hands of the former. They immediately changed their attitude, threatened the storekeeper and his friend with arrest, espoused my cause, and even went with me as far as the door of the Hotel Maury to "protect me from molestation" as they called it.

A certain Lima senator not long ago caught his wife in a compromising act with a stranger. He had them both arrested on a charge of adultery. He hired the police to castrate the stranger, which was done in the jail. No proceedings were ever taken against the senator and the stranger was given short notice to leave the city.